National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2010
Floor Speech
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (Senate - July 15, 2009)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
AFFORDABLE HEALTH CHOICES ACT
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I grew up in Mansfield, OH, a middle-class town of about 50,000 people, halfway between Cleveland and Columbus, in north central Ohio. It is a town similar to thousands of other cities in Ohio such as Marion, Zanesville, Xenia, Springfield, Portsmouth, Chilcote, and Ravenna. It is a town not much different from dozens of cities around our Nation.
My dad was a family doctor. He practiced into his late seventies. He lived to be 89 and died about 9 years ago. My dad for years made house calls, caring for his friends and neighbors, regardless of their ability to pay. One patient, I remember, gave my dad a little arrowhead collection after my dad had done very important work for his health.
Today the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed historic health reform legislation that restores my dad's sense of quality and compassion in our health care system.
This legislation was not written for the insurance industry. It was not drafted by the drug industry or any other segment of the health care industry. We remember not that long ago in this Chamber--I remember it more intensely at the other end of the Hall in the House of Representatives where I sat on the Health Committee--we remember in those days the drug companies wrote the Medicare laws, and the health insurance industry wrote health care legislation. Those days are gone. This bill is not for them; it is for the American people.
The health care industry does not like this bill that much. That is because they did not get their way on issue after issue. They did sometimes. They did dramatically on occasion in our committee. But, by and large, this bill is not for them. This bill is for the American people. It is for American families who are afraid that unaffordable health care costs will deny their children a chance for a healthy life.
Everybody in this Chamber has met dozens of children such as that who
needed the Children's Health Insurance Program to keep their families from going bankrupt and to keep their health care going. Children who need this health care legislation, families who need this bill too often choose between medicine and food, between heating their homes in the winter and cooling their homes in the summer on the one hand and going to the doctor on the other.
This bill is for American families that do not have health insurance at all. Maybe they work for an employer who cannot afford to provide health insurance. Maybe they lost their job. Maybe they cannot afford their share of the premium for employer-sponsored coverage. Maybe they have a preexisting condition that makes them undesirable to the insurance industry. Maybe they cannot pay their mortgage, feed their children, and pay for nongroup health coverage. Unfortunately, for many Americans, something had to give. But not anymore. This bill is for them.
Two weeks ago in Columbus, I was having breakfast with my daughter and a friend--a young woman who teaches voice lessons. She just graduated from college. She is working at this restaurant part time while she finds more and more students to teach voice lessons as she begins her business. She does not have health insurance. She came up and said: Are you going to give me health insurance this year?
I said: Yes. It is a commitment of the President of the United States. We are going to finish this bill this year.
I am going to send her a note tonight telling her what we did today.
Not too long ago, I was at a grocery store in Avon, OH, near my home. My wife asked me to find water crackers. I didn't know what water crackers were. I was standing in the aisle, and I asked a guy: Do you know what water crackers are?
He said: They are right there. This is a gentleman who is self-employed and sells food products, mostly crackers and cookies, for a national company. He sells them to local grocery stores in Lorain County. He said to me: I am self-employed. Are you going to pass the public option I need to make sure you can keep the health insurance industry honest and I can get decent health coverage?
I said: Yes, we are--because we are.
This bill is for them. It is for the young woman in Columbus, it is for the younger man in Avon, the man approaching middle age, it is for him.
This bill was developed with a few core principles in mind. First, Americans who like their current health coverage should be able to keep it. If you have good insurance, if you like your employer-based insurance, by all means keep that insurance. Keep what you have. This bill is designed to protect existing coverage while putting downward pressure on health insurance premiums. What is going to happen to those people who now have insurance? Right now if you have decent insurance, you are also paying the cost; when you go to the emergency room with your insurance, you are also paying the cost of somebody who goes to the emergency room without insurance. You are paying the cost that doctors and hospitals and, frankly, taxpayers provide for those people without insurance. You are absorbing those costs.
So when this bill passes, when the President signs this bill in October or November, there is a reasonably good chance that the cost of your insurance, whether you are the employer, whether you are the employee, will stabilize. The costs will stabilize and maybe go down.
I mentioned this bill was developed with a few core principles in mind. No. 1, people who like their current insurance can keep it. No. 2, people underinsured or uninsured should be able to find good coverage and pay a reasonable premium for it. They will have full choice of private insurance or, the third point is, Americans should have choices they want. This bill includes a strong public health insurance option designed to increase price competition in the health insurance industry and to help keep private insurers honest.
And speaking of honest, another principle behind this bill is that health insurers should do what they are paid to do. This bill includes new rules to prevent insurers from denying you coverage for preexisting conditions, terminating your coverage just to save money or excluding you from coverage because of your age or health history.
There are two things going on here: One, we are putting rules on the insurance industry so they cannot keep gaming the community rating system, can't keep imposing preexisting conditions on potential people they insure, can't lock people out who are too sick and they don't want to cover.
First is the rules. Second is creation of a public option, which will mean competition. We make sure insurance companies are doing the right thing by the rules, but we also inject competition, so public option will compete with private insurance companies.
This bill was written for American families, for American patients, for American businesses, and for American taxpayers. This bill is a victory for the thousands of Ohioans who shared with me their struggle for our health care system. It is about retiree Christopher from Cincinnati. He is worried his shattered retirement savings and small pension won't keep up with rising insurance premiums.
This bill is about breast cancer survivor Michelle from Willoughby, OH, Lake County, east of Cleveland, who should no longer live, in her words, ``for the sum of my work is to pay for insurance.''
It is about the children that Darlene, a school nurse from Cleveland, treats each day who struggle in school because they are worried about a sick parent or grandparent who cannot get the health care they need.
It is about small business owner Kathleen from Rocky River, who is trying to do right for her employees but whose small business is being crushed by exorbitant health insurance costs.
It is about Karen from Toledo, whose adult son has advanced MS, and for 5 years she has seen her savings drained, forcing her to drop out of college.
It is about these Ohioans. It is about Ohioans in Lima, Springfield, Volare, St. Clairsville, Pickaway, and Troy. It is about people around this country, the millions who work hard, play by the rules, who still struggle each day with disease and despair. It is about their stories, those who have inspired us to stand with them and not be intimidated by the special interests that are spending $1 million every single day lobbying to try to write this bill--the insurance companies, the drug companies that have had such a huge influence in the Halls of Congress over the last several years but this time did not have the kind of influence they wanted.
Because of this bill, more Americans will be able to afford health care. Crucial national priorities will not be crowded out by health care spending. No longer will exploding health care costs cut into family budgets, wear down businesses, drain tax dollars from local governments, from State governments or from Federal budgets.
This bill uses market competition and common sense to squeeze out an efficiency, to maximize quality to ensure every American has access to quality, affordable coverage.
More work is yet to be done. We have taken a long step toward the day that generations before us have prepared us for, that pushed this government to do more and do better.
This started in the 1930s when Harry Truman wanted to include Medicare or some version of national health care with Social Security but thought he could not get it passed and settled for Social Security. Harry Truman tried in the late 1940s. Lyndon Johnson successfully pushed through Congress, with strong Democratic majorities in each House, to create Medicare. We have tried ever since. This is the time.
I thank Senator Dodd for his leadership of the HELP Committee over the last few weeks. It was an impressive and productive process from beginning to end. We worked in a deliberate, bipartisan manner.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. We worked in a deliberate, bipartisan manner, spanning 13 days, 287 amendments were debated, and 161 Republican amendments were included in this bill. We worked hard to make sure this bill reflects broad
ranges of views and best serves the American people.
A special thank you to my friend and colleague, Chairman Kennedy, whose Senate career has been dedicated to providing health care to those in need. Senator Kennedy's activism and determination made this day possible. My Senate colleagues and I and millions of Americans who may finally see the day when there is quality affordable health care owe him our gratitude and thanks.
In closing, of all injustices, Martin Luther King once observed: ``Injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.''
This day is a victory for Ohio families, it is a victory for seniors and middle-class families around the Nation who deserve the humane justice of an affordable health care system that works for all of them.
We have a historic opportunity to make fundamental improvements to our Nation's health care system. We must not squander it--not in this Nation, not at this time.
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